


Band-aids

by idontwantrobyntodie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Academy Era, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Genin Era, POV Umino Iruka, Ramen, Uzumaki Naruto Needs a Hug, kishi didn't give naruto enough attention, so i am here to do it for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:40:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29479335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontwantrobyntodie/pseuds/idontwantrobyntodie
Summary: Naruto starts coming in to the academy every morning with band-aids on his fingers. Iruka, like any good teacher, is Concerned
Relationships: Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	Band-aids

The first time Naruto came in with brightly-colored plastic band-aids applied to his fingertips in that careful-yet-sloppy way of his, Iruka noticed, but didn’t say anything. The kid talked enough as it was, encouraging him was like willingly sacrificing your ears. Still, Iruka kept an eye on him. Naruto healed quickly enough that it was rare for him to have a wound long enough need treatment, never mind notice it in the first place, never mind tend to it if he did. His fingers didn’t seem to bother him, though, and the bandages were gone by the next morning. The matter easily left Iruka’s mind. 

The second time it happened, he decided he would ask. It was strange to have had something happen to all five fingers at once, and it was even stranger for it to happen twice. He meant to ask him during lunch, because making Naruto the center of attention in the middle of class was the last thing anyone needed. But as soon as the bell rang and he started across the room to ask, someone on the playground threw up, and when that was finally cleaned up a parent came to complain about something or another, and it was only when he got home, exhausted, that Iruka remembered Naruto and his brightly colored fingertips, just as he was collapsing in bed. 

Tomorrow, he promised himself as his eyes closed. Tomorrow. 

Tomorrow the bandages were gone (again) and tomorrow Naruto had made the brilliant decision to vandalize a storefront (again) and tomorrow Iruka too busy strongarming the boy into apologizing to remember to ask (again). The matter was not brought up. 

The third time it happened, Naruto had come in late and the class was waiting for the usual scolding to commence with more eagerness than the audience of the chunnin exams. Iruka took one look at the now-familiar plastic bandages and couldn’t help but sigh in exasperation, “Naruto, what happened to your fingers?”

He quickly hid his hands behind his back. “Nothing.”

“Naruto—“

“It’s nothing! I didn’t do anything.” The classroom had begun its characteristic chorus of titters and chatter behind him, and Naruto flushed a stubborn, furious pink. 

At first Iruka had mostly been curious, but he was quickly growing concerned. He would hold out on the alarm, for now, but that was close too. “If this is another one of your pranks—“

“It’s not! Promise!”

“—I will march you straight down to the hokage myself. Now what did you do?”

“I was doing... extra practice. Yeah, yeah. I was practicing.”

A snort sounded clearly from the back of the classroom. Naruto whipped his head around to glare at “the teme” for daring to mock him, but jerked back to attention with a gulp when Iruka pointedly cleared his throat. 

“You were practicing,” Iruka repeated slowly. “With shuriken?”

“Yeah! Cause I’m gonna be the best, you know, and—“

“By _yourself_?” 

“Yeah! No, no, wait, I mean...” Naruto let out a frustrated huff, crossing his arms and scrunching his face up. “What does it matter?”

“It matters because if you’ve gotten into trouble again—“

“I burnt my fingers making ramen!”

Iruka paused. The entire classroom paused too, for a moment after his shouted confession, and then began their chattering anew. Naruto brought his shoulders up around him like he was bracing himself for a hit, letting the chatter wash over him, and glared resolutely at the floor. 

He’s burnt his fingers making ramen. 

Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose and let himself close his eyes, just for a moment. It was going to be one of those days, then. “You burnt your fingers making ramen.”

“Yes,” Naruto ground out. He didn’t look up from the ground. 

“Three times this week?”

“ _Yes_.”

“And why didn’t you tell me that the first time I asked?”

He crossed his arms and tapped his foot, waiting for an answer, but Naruto kept staring at the floor and said nothing. 

Iruka sighed. The kid already had burnt fingers. He’d give him a break. “Alright, Naruto,” he said quietly. “Go sit down. We’ll talk more after school.” 

Naruto sulked slowly to his seat. He did not look at anyone. He especially, pointedly, did not look at Sasuke's smirk, or Sakura and Ino’s conspiratory whispers, or Shikamaru’s half annoyed, half sympathetic frown. He sat down in the very back of the classroom and slumped down with his arms folded and his face against the table, a miserable little pile of orange tracksuit. Iruka watched him for a moment before he began his lecture, and tried not to feel as guilty as he did. 

He’d burnt his fingers. Making ramen. 

Iruka had known he lived alone, of course, and he’d never thought much about it. After the war, there too many orphans and not enough people to look after them. Iruka himself had lived alone, after the kyuubi took his parents. He tried not to think about the kyuubi. Not at work, when the kid was sitting _right there_ , and… 

But Iruka had been eleven, and a mature eleven. He’d known how to take care of himself. Naruto was seven. He’d been living in that apartment alone for the past three years, at least, by himself, and Iruka wouldn’t have trusted him with boiling water in a room full of fully-trained ANBU, nevermind by himself. Naruto had no one to tell him how long to boil the water, or hold his hands steady while he poured. Naruto had no one to teach him how to mince vegetables. Naruto had no one to tell him _to_ eat vegetables. 

Did… did he eat anything but ramen? Was he getting enough calcium? Did he eat any fiber _at all_? 

After he released his charges into the playground, feeling like a zookeeper who opened the latch on the lion’s case and decided it wasn’t his problem anymore, Iruka cornered Naruto at the back of the schoolyard with a (reassuring?) clap to the shoulder before he could make his escape. “Naruto.” 

Naruto jumped and whirled around, his usual grin stamped on his whiskered face. “Aah, Iruka-sensei! I wasn’t going anywhere, promise. About this morning… Sorry I was late. But I mean it wasn’t my fault, you know!” 

“Naruto,” Iruka groaned, already feeling the start of the headache. “Come on, let’s go.” 

That stopped him short, in a way few things ever did. “Go where?” he said slowly, peering up at him with one squinting, suspicious eye. 

“To… to your place. To make ramen.” 

Naruto perked up, a bright, manic look lighting up his eyes. “Really?” 

Iruka hadn’t really meant it. He’d only wanted to get the kid to stop talking, so they could have a conversation, but now that he’d said it he couldn’t imagine taking it back. “Yeah,” he found himself saying. “Yeah, let’s go.”

He had his reservations. They faded at the sunny look on Naruto’s face and the bright chime of his voice as he talked all the way back. 

Through some careful coaxing, but mostly entirely unprompted, Iruka learned that no, Naruto did not live on ramen alone, but he came pretty close. Yes, he did know how to make rice, and he was pretty good at it you know, but eating just rice all the time was _boring,_ so he had to eat just ramen all the time as well to balance it out. Instant ramen was really good, not as good as Ichiraku’s but still really good but sometimes he got impatient and tried to eat it too fast and burned his tongue and sometimes the water overflowed because the kettle was heavy and that was how he burnt his fingers. No, he couldn’t eat at Ichiraku’s every day, he couldn’t afford that! Yeah, yeah, he did go to other restaurants. Sometimes. But… well… (he said this part in a smaller voice) not all the storekeepers liked him. But that was okay! Because none of them were as good as Ichiraku’s anyway. Vegetables? Ew! No! Iruka-sensei, ninja didn’t eat _vegetables_ , they needed to grow _strong_. Vegetables were just gross. 

Iruka held back a fond smile as he followed his student through Konoha’s dusty streets. He fought to keep that smile unwavering when he was let in, and saw the state of the apartment. “Naruto,” he growled, “don’t you _clean_?”

“Um,” Naruto said, shifting on his feet and rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry?” 

_It’s not his faul_ , Iruka reminded himself through careful breaths. _He’s a kid. There’s no one here to remind him to clean up_. 

Ramen. 

“Where’s the kitchen?” he asked. He hoped, desperately, that there was one. 

There was a kitchen, hidden somewhere below the unwashed dishes and abandoned ramen cups and milk cartons. Iruka made Naruto clear all the trash and stack all the dishes in the sink before they started. 

“This is boring,” he whined as he tied off the top of the garbage back. 

“Stop complaining before I make you wash them all.” 

He was much more pleasant after that. 

When the area was… not clean, but cleaner than it had been, Iruka helped Naruto fill up the kettle in the sink, only halfway so it didn’t bubble over, and set it to boil. They set two cups of ramen out on the table for when the water was ready, and they waited. 

Or, Iruka waited. Naruto twisted in his chair and leaned his head back against the headrest and drummed his feet against the underside of the table. “This is taking forever!” 

Iruka let himself smile, this time. “It’s almost ready.” 

He groaned and let his head drop to the table. His voice came muffled when he spoke. “But I want it now.” 

“You need to be patient about things, Naruto,” Iruka said gently. 

Naruto looked up to glare at him from beneath his arms, unconvinced. “Why?” 

“Because… well…” His eyes caught onto brightly colored plastic, what had started this all. “Do you have a first aid kit? I should do something about those burns.” 

“Eh, it’s fine. They’re probably gone by now anyway.” 

Iruka doubted burns from the morning would be healed by three in the afternoon. “Let’s make sure.” 

The first aid kit was under the couch, only half zipped up from where Naruto had used his band aid stash in the morning. To his surprise, most of the burns really were mostly healed. Iruka carefully swathed them each in burn cream anyway, and replaced the band aids one by one. Naruto beamed at Iruka once he was done. 

“Thanks, Iruka-sensei,” he chirped. “That’s a lot easier than doing them myself.” 

Iruka swallowed. He didn’t know what to say to that. He wondered how many times Naruto had tended to his own scrapes-- and there had to be plenty of them, on a kid who spent his days hopping between rooftops and skidding down streets. He wondered if anyone had ever sat him down to smooth tears and clean cuts. No, they couldn’t have. Naruto, small as he was, didn’t cry.

It had been many years since then, and in the bustle of the day he tried to forget it, but on the quiet nights when he couldn’t fall asleep, Iruka remembered what it felt like to be alone. 

He didn’t tell Naruto that. Instead, he smiled and said quietly, “Next time you get hurt, come to me and I’ll fix you up. Alright?” 

He could tell by the hesitant scowl that Naruto didn’t believe him. That was alright. He’d get him to believe him, someday. 

Naruto looked away. “Fine, I guess,” he grumbled, swinging his heels. 

Iruka smiled and reached over to ruffle his fluffy blond hair. Naruto leaned in like he didn’t want him to stop, so he didn’t. 

The kettle whistled it’s shrill song. Naruto carefully poured the water into the ramen cups, with both hands this time. Iruka helped. It was, Naruto declared, almost as good as Ichiraku’s. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you are reading this you have my many thanks and my earnest hopes that you enjoyed it. I humbly ask for comments in return bcs I won't know if you liked it if you don't tell me, dammit, pls hand over the sweet sweet validation juice 
> 
> I churned most of this out on an airplane today, because when you don't have wifi and you already finished your book (see dad I should have brought two I told you I'd finish the first one) the notes app is all that is left. I've been in a bit of a slump with my original works lately, and it was thus lovely to be able to just write without caring too much about how /good/ it is. If it happens to be good anyway, that's all the better! 
> 
> This idea has been floating in my head for a long time because it still makes me sad to think of baby Naruto living in an apartment alone :( and I love his relationship with Iruka. I'm a sucker for any kind of father figure in fiction. I tried to balance out those caring teacher instincts (i am a teacher myself so i understand that a lil bit) with canon Iruka's complicated feelings towards the kyuubi, but soft Iruka won in the end and that's not anyone's loss I don't think. 
> 
> A note on naruto's healing abilities: in episode what was it he heals from a kunai from the hand almost immediately, so minor burns should heal pretty quickly, but 1. his healing abilities were inconsistent in canon 2. burns are a bitch, even small ones 3. it's my story and I get to pick the canon 
> 
> i will now shut up. until next time (maybe), thank you so much for reading!


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